52 Sounds
On July 27, 2023…
Steve and I went to a see (hear?) 32 Sounds at The Exploratorium. This documentary, by Sam Green, is presented quasi-live… Green narrates it right there in the room as you’re watching and listening—through headphones. As the name implies, it’s about sound. The New York Times called it a “relentlessly curious documentary” with “lingering gravitas.”
Those are not the words I’d use, but I generally agree. It was awesome.
As we were walking back to BART afterward, past the towering Embarcadero Center buildings, I noticed the surprisingly abundant park space between the imposing buildings and the edge of the Jackson Park neighborhood and I started to wonder what this stretch of land has sounded like over the past 100 years or so, and for the millennium before that.
And then I had this idea: What if I record stuff in my life on the regular, and then every week I’ll pick a sound. I’ll make a list of sounds and sound explanations or reflections. For a year. 52 Sounds.
07.29.23: Merlin
We were at Minibasin (our place in the Santa Cruz Mnts) and woke up to lots of bird songs. I grabbed my phone and opened the Merlin app. It ID’ed a few different birds in this recording, but the most prominent is the Olive-sided Flycatcher. (I later learned that the bird in the Western US has a different call than in the Eastern US.) Can you ID the others?
08.04.23: Cold irritant
Steve and I bought a new fridge a few years ago. Not because the old one broke, but largely because I really wanted a freezer on the bottom. Just makes more sense to me. But this fridge we bought has developed a super annoying sound that drives me completely insane. It comes and goes. Steve can successfully ignore it. I’m jealous. My advice: believe reviews of fridges that say they’re noisy. We didn’t. (You might need to up the volume a bit.)
08.10.23: Duckpin
We’re in Milwaukee for Steve’s family reunion. We all went to an old dive bar called Koz’s for duckpin bowling, as we did back in 2011. It’s really fun. Short lanes and hand-held, small bowling balls. And it’s all manual — the fee includes hiring a couple kids to reset the pins each time you roll the ball. Steve’s Aunt Mary joined. She bowled, too, despite having to use a walker due to MS. She’s awesome. Here’s some ambient sound from that trip.
08.16.23: Hula & fire
Three years since the CZU fire turned 1,450 structures—including the cabin & RV at our beloved Minibasin—to ash. One week since the wildfires killed 111 (and counting … shockingly > 1,000 remain unaccounted for) on Maui. And today, 20,000 people are being evacuated in Canada’s Northwest Territory due to hundreds of fires. Meanwhile, I’m producing podcast episodes on mining and recycling minerals needed or li-ion batteries for clean energy. We’ll need to mine 6x the volume of minerals we currently do to meet climate goals. So today’s recording is not a metronome, as you might think, but the sound of a solar-powered hula girl toy. In direct sunlight, she really moves fast and sounds like a ticking clock. Time is running out.
Next week.
Who knows?